Evoqua Water Pays $8.5 Million to Settle SEC Charges

By Will Feuer

Evoqua Water Technologies Corp. has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $8.5 million over charges of improper accounting and misleading investors that were brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC said that Evoqua Water's former division-level finance director, Imran Parekh, engaged in fraudulent accounting practices that resulted in Evoqua improperly reporting materially false revenue figures in filings from 2017 to 2018.

Mr. Parekh has also agreed to settle the charges. Monetary and other relief against Mr. Parekh would be left to a later decision by the court, the SEC said.

The SEC's complaint alleged that Mr. Parekh inflated Evoqua's revenue by improperly accounting for so-called "bill-and-hold" transactions, for which Evoqua recognized revenue from the sale of filtration products earlier than permitted.

The complaint further alleges that negligent conduct at Evoqua's corporate level facilitated Mr. Parekh's improper accounting practices.

As a result, Evoqua improperly reported nearly $12 million of additional expected revenue for its fiscal 2017 in its registration statement and its initial public offering prospectus, the SEC said.

Write to Will Feuer at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 13, 2023 10:23 ET (14:23 GMT)

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